


and live without shame

by theviolonist



Category: The Hour
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 17:40:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever asks Hector where he found Marnie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and live without shame

**Author's Note:**

> For [fluffyfrolicker](http://fluffyfrolicker.livejournal.com)'s [multifandom women ficathon](http://fluffyfrolicker.livejournal.com/35323.html).

No one ever asks Hector where he found Marnie. It's like she started to exist with him, like her act of marriage was also her act of birth, and when she signed the precise, swirling curlicue she was also beginning to exist. She brought him everything, recognition, money, status - but it doesn't matter. Marnie Madden started to exist when she became - well, Marnie Madden. 

Her name isn't even Marnie, actually. It is, now - but at first, in that secret pre-life she isn't supposed to mention, she was called Amaena. Quite unusual, people used to say when they visited, tight-lipped over tea and muffins that she would serve in the same china she now pretends she's bought the week before. They would be satisfied now. Marnie isn't an unusual name. Doesn't draw attention to itself more than it ought to, more than is proper.

*

On the morning of the first anniversary of her wedding, after her husband sails off to work, dropping the customary, diligent kiss on her forehead, Marnie Madden puts on her pink gloves. Stockings, shoes, hat, pearls. She goes down to the grocery store, buys a pack of flour and a candle. Comes back to the flat. Gloves. Pearls, hat, shoes, stockings. 

She makes the cake with the same laudable focus as always, kneading the flour without damaging her nails as only she seems to know how to. She puts it into the oven, checks her watch. She sits in front of the TV with her knees crossed, wondering fleetingly what her husband is doing, something that has nothing to do with her at all. In fairness, she thinks idly, no one ever asks Marnie where she found him, either. 

When the oven pings, Marnie gathers the folds of her dress and goes back to the kitchen. The cake is perfect. Nothing new. Marnie has a surprising knack for perfect things. 

She sticks the candle in the hot crust. She thinks about breaking a mirror, cutting her veins open, closing the oven door so it isn't so hot in the room. In the end, she just blows the candle. 

"Happy birthday, Marnie," she says, with charming laughter. 

*

She leaves three slices for him in the fridge. 

*

When she's bored, which happens from time to time, every afternoon between three and four, Marnie takes out the list. Or rather The List, as she calls it in her mind. It's a list of all the things Hector never asked her. 

Were you ever in love before me? she writes down as the sun dips satisfyingly on the other side of the window, brushing a hint of red-gold freedom against the glass. 

She bites down on the end of her pencil, once, lightly. 

Were you ever in love at all? she adds, sandwiched between Do you want a cigar? and How about you choose the program?

*

Sometimes, when she walks with Hector in the street, Marnie has this secret fear that she's going to dissolve. It's easy: Hector will make a joke, and laugh at it. He'll look over at her, surprised not to hear the echoing chuckle, and she won't be there anymore, just an empty space on his arm. Just like that, gone. 

Sometimes, on her darker days, she resents him for it. He's emptied her so thoroughly, and he didn't bother to put anything back in, and now she's so light, so inconsequential. Bel Rowley would never dissolve in the sun, would she? 

(Sometimes, it's not just in the street. Sometimes it's in the kitchen, and she grips the oven railing not to float away like a helium balloon; or it's in bed, when he's heaving over her, and she has to fist her hands in the sheets to be sure that she won't evaporate. Sometimes it's all the time, everywhere, and she feels her atoms pulling her apart, probably distracted by being other things with more substance.)


End file.
